Director Aisling Walsh & Producer Paul Young have both been accepted into the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. This news comes as the AMPAS announced 928 new members from 59 countries to the Academy.

Cartoon Saloon’s Paul Young has produced each of the three Oscar nominated titles by the Kilkenny-based studio ‘The Secret of Kells’ (2009), ‘Song of the Sea’ (2014), and ‘The Breadwinner’ (2017). Aisling Walsh is an IFTA & BAFTA winning director with her most recent film ‘Maudie’ starring Academy Award nominees Ethan Hawke & Sally Hawkins.

Speaking about her acceptance, Aisling Walsh told IFTN:

“It is a real honour to be invited to join the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I am absolutely delighted.”

Speaking about his acceptance, Producer Paul Young told IFTN:

“I'm really delighted to have been accepted into the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. I think all Filmmakers have a long history with the Oscars, either as a spectator watching through the years on TV or being lucky enough to have joined the celebrations. I've found the animation community in the US to be very welcoming and generous with Irish Animators and Filmmakers, so I'm looking forward to being able to contribute to the organisation through their many programmes as an individual and with Cartoon Saloon. “

Diversity has been a major point of concern for the Academy since the fallout over the lack of ethnic diversity among the Oscar nominations in 2016. This in turn resulted in strong efforts being made to improve diversity within the Academy. These efforts have also been highlighted in the official membership report, which gives a breakdown of the steps being taken to improve the ethnic and gender disparities that exist in the Academy currently.

Of the 928 new members, 49% are female. This in turn has brought the overall female membership to 31%, a marked rise of 3% since last year (2017: 28%) and a 6% rise since 2015 (25%) when the female membership accounted for only a quarter of the total membership of the academy.

With regards to ethnic diversity, 38% of the 2018 membership are ‘People of Colour’(POC), bringing the overall ‘POC’ membership up to 16%. As a result, the overall representation for ‘POC’ has doubled since 2015, when only 8% of the Academy consisted of ethnic minorities.

The new 2018 members include 17 Oscar winners, 92 Oscar nominees, and 103 Oscar nominations.